In praise of ... student protest

To the long list of altruistic student campaigns down the years - against apartheid, in defence of free speech, anti-war (both Vietnam and Iraq) - and the more self-interested crusades against tuition fees or rent rises, now add another campaign. Oxford students have launched a new public interest cause that other university students should join: to defend animal-testing to advance medical science.

They have even given it an apt title: Pro-Test. The aim is to ape (sic) the tactics of animal rights activists with the important exception that there will be no violence or intimidation. Instead the campaigners are using websites and chat forums to rally support including a counter-demonstration against an animal rights event opposing Oxford's new £20m medical research centre.

Animal liberation extremists have already used an array of illegal coercive attempts to shut down the project, including destroying the HQ of a company that was merely providing cement for its construction. Since then, a law against the extremist campaigns has been passed and 500 eminent medical scientists pledged support to a Research Defence Society declaration defending tests.

True, alternatives to animal tests have not been fully explored in some fields, but the declaration admits as much. What is indisputable is that the vast majority of medical advances in the last century - insulin, antibiotics, vaccines - needed animal tests. Another old slogan comes to mind: Pro-Test and survive.